Amazon's fourth quarter sales missed
projections, but earnings were ahead. The big wild card was Kindle
device sales, which tripled over the holidays.

The e-commerce giant reported earnings
of $177 million in the fourth quarter, or 38 cents a share, on revenue
of $17.43 billion, up 35 percent from a year ago. Wall Street was
expecting earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $18.25 billion.

How was Wall Street so mixed up? First, the Kindle Fire went on sale
and analysts weren't sure what to expect in terms of margins.

Meanwhile, the outlook for the first quarter fell short of
expectations. Amazon projected first quarter sales between $12 billion
and $13.4 billion with a wide profit and loss range. Amazon projected an
operating loss $200 million to a profit $100 million.

For 2011, Amazon reported earnings of $631 million, or $2.17 a share,
on revenue of $48.98 billion, up 41 percent from a year ago. Just like
the fourth quarter results, Amazon's revenue growth was strong, but
earnings fell dramatically from a year ago.

In a statement, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said "millions of customers"
bought the Kindle Fire and other e-readers. As per Amazon custom, no
hard numbers were disclosed.